November Updates

November has been a pretty busy month for me and today I realized that I hadn't posted in awhile.  Since I last posted, lots of things have happened so instead of writing a longer post, I decided it would make more since to write up short little tidbits to give you an idea of what my life has looked like these past few weeks!  I also apologize for the lack of photos, I left my camera in Argentina and probably won't get it back until a friend of mine that lives in Buenos Aires can return it to me.

Retreat

Last week was the Argentina/Uruguay YAGM retreat during which we (all the YAGM volunteers from Argentina & Uruguay) came together for a week of reflection on our experiences thus far in South America.  Although the retreat was in Uruguay, I went to Buenos Aires, Argentina first to renew my visa because since I have a tourist visa, I have to leave the country every 90 days.  The retreat was held on at Centro Emmanuel, which is an ecumenical owned working farm and retreat center in Colonia Valdense, Uruguay.  The day we arrived in Colonia Valdense, they had a parade to celebrate the town festival, which reminded me a lot of Platteville's Dairy Day Parade.  Centro Emmanuel was a very refreshing place to be and made me feel like I was back in Wisconsin.  Once I get my camera I can show you the pictures.

Thanksgiving

During the retreat we had a great meal for Thanksgiving!  We had to substitute some things and had to convert all our recipes to the metric system but dinner was great.  We had squash, mashed potatoes with gravy, a unique variation of green bean casserole, chicken, Hawaiian salad and squash pie for dessert.  We also shared pictures of our families back in the United States.  However, what really made my Thanksgiving was the fact that a random dog showed up at the farm on Thanksgiving.  It was a golden retriever that reminded me a lot of my dog Milo, also a golden retriever, and even though I couldn't be home for Thanksgiving, being at Centro Emmanuel, enjoying a great meal with friends and having the chance to hang out with a Golden Retriever made me feel at home.

Piriapolis

Casa de Jóvenes, which is the group of teenagers I work with at La Obra had an end of the year trip to Piriapolis, which is a beach town about two hours from Montevideo and I was invited to go.  In order to go, I left the YAGM retreat a day early to catch a 9:30 PM bus back to Montevideo and didn't get back to my house until about 12:30 AM and promptly crashed into my bed.  The plan for the trip to Piriapolis was that I would share a taxi with some people I work with from La Obra and that the taxi would be outside at 6:15....my alarm didn't go off and I woke up at 6:10, got dressed and rushed out the door just in time for the taxi.  I was extremely tired and as a result fell asleep in my seat with my mouth open which was documented on camera by the teenagers.  By the time we got to Piriapolis, I felt a lot more awake, which was good because we did some hiking because although Uruguay is fairly flat, Piriapolis is a town that is in between some pretty big (for Uruguay) hills and the ocean.  However, after we hiked around and ate lunch the bus broke, it was an issue with hydraulics, so after waiting a bit we all took a local bus to the beach.  I was invited by some of the kids to play beach soccer against some other beach goers, which I was really excited about because even though I been playing soccer for a long time, there just aren't that many chances to play beach soccer in southwest Wisconsin.  Given that one of the "sidelines" was a seawall and the other was the ocean, there were lots of chances to use your surroundings to your advantage.  Also beach soccer means sand (obviously) which is something I didn't take into account at first.  Just a little bit of advice, when someone goes to kick or pass, you should probably close your eyes!  About five minutes into the game I got hit in the face when someone tried to clear the ball over my head, which is painful enough given it is a soccer ball but I had to spend the next five minutes washing my eyes in the ocean.  Lesson learned.  In the end, playing beach soccer on a beautifully sunny dat in Latin America has always been something I've dreamed of doing so a little sand in the eye was not the end of the world.